page_title: Minya, Egypt
section_title: Ancient Egyptian
hierarchical_section_title: Minya, Egypt / History / Ancient Egyptian
caption_attribution_description: Map showing the Nome divisions in the ancient Egyptian Middle Kingdom.
context_page_description: Minya is the capital of the Minya Governorate in Upper Egypt. It is located approximately 245 km south of Cairo on the western bank of the Nile River, which flows north through the city. The name of the city is derived from its ancient Egyptian name Men'at Khufu, meaning the nursing city of Khufu, linking it to the Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
context_section_description: After the unification of Egypt, the provincial capital of the 16th nome emerged as an important center of trade. It was opposite a trade route to the Red Sea along which the Levantine traders carrying their goods from Sinai and Canaan travelled. During later times of the Old Kingdom, the name of the city was changed to Men'at Khufu, linking it to the Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops (reigning around 2550 BC) founder of the Great Pyramid at Giza as it was believed that he was born there. The city of Men'at Khufu has not been located but it is thought to be located on the west bank of the Nile in the vicinity of the modern day Minya.
  Following the collapse of the Old Kingdom, and during the First Intermediate Period, rulers of Men'at Khufu became wealthy and powerful and enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy in relation to the central power of Pharaohs. The princes of the Oryx nome initially remained neutral during the long struggle that dominated the First Intermediate Period between the Herakleopolitan and Theban kingdoms, but eventually during the reign of Baqet III they formed an alliance with the Thebans in the time of Mentuhotep II. This pro-Theban policy worked to their advantage in that power over the Oryx nome continued to be wielded by the same family after the Theban conquest.  The power of the rulers of Men'at Khufu reached its height during the 11th Dynasty.
  Like Pharaohs, rulers of the Oryx nome were deeply concerned with their lives after death.  Because the pyramid building age was over or maybe because they could not afford to construct their own pyramids, the rulers of Mena'at Khufu chose the limestone cliffs of the eastern desert overlooking a gentle curve in the Nile as an ideal spot on which to carve their tombs. These chapel-tombs at Beni Hasan are the only remnant of the era when Minya rulers wielded power and wealth. Today these thirty nine rock-cut tombs can be visited in the limestone cliffs above the modern day village of Beni Hasan. Though not as great and magnificent as other monuments of ancient Egypt, the Beni Hasan tombs are extremely important as their walls reveal more information about life in Egypt 4,000 years ago more than any other monument in Egypt.  In fact these tombs provide more insight about daily life in Egypt than about the rulers who constructed them.
  With the rise of the 12th Dynasty, the powers of Minya rulers were forcibly reduced by the Pharaoh Amenemhat II (1929–1895 BC).  By the end of the 12th Dynasty, the role and the power of the rulers of Minya were functionally eliminated.
  During the Second Intermediate Period, Minya with the rest of Lower and Middle Egypt fell under the control of the Hyksos. It appears that Minya's rulers actually supported the Hyksos 15th Dynasty rulers against the native Egyptian pharaohs of the 16th and 17th dynasties. Towards the end of the Second Intermediate Period when the Theban Pharaohs started their struggle to expel the Hyksos out of Egypt, Minya was the site where the first major battle of this conflict took place. In 1552 BC, Kamose, the last Pharaoh of the 17th dynasty marched his Medjay troops north to Nefrusy few miles to the south of Minya and there he defeated the army of a man called Teti son of Pepi, who is said to have transformed Minya into a "nest of the Asiatics". This was the first major defeat for the Hyksos which later would encourage Ahmose I, the younger brother of Kamose, to march north and expel the Hyksos out of Egypt for good around 1540 BC.
  As for the Beni Hasan tombs, most of them were later ravaged.  Some were defaced by rulers that followed.  Mutilation of the tomb chamber was the fate of many monuments during the centuries following the demise of Pharaonic Egypt.  Tombs were converted into dwellings, quarried as a ready source of stone, or deliberately damaged by early Christians and Muslims.
caption: Nomes of Middle Egypt
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